Wolves boss Bruno Lage explains tactics in ‘deserved’ win at Manchester United - ‘We controlled the game’
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Updated 04/01/2022 at 09:47 GMT
Joao Moutinho's 82nd-minute winner handed Wolves a 1-0 win at Manchester United on Monday. Luke Shaw said United were “so poor” in a match which Wolves largely dominated. Bruno Lage gave a detailed explanation in his post-match interview as to how Wolves picked up just their second Premier League win in their last seven outings.
'We should score more' - Lage urges more after Wolves win over Man Utd
Bruno Lage gave a detailed explanation of how his Wolves side beat Manchester United at Old Trafford on Monday.
Wolves ran out 1-0 winners at Old Trafford, with Joao Moutinho's 82nd-minute strike consigning Ralf Rangnick to a first defeat as United’s interim manager.
Luke Shaw described United’s performance as “so poor”, with Wolves outplaying the hosts and recording more than twice as many chances – nine v 19.
Lage said Wolves “controlled” the game and looked to starve United of the ball as much as possible.
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Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers celebrates after scoring their side's first goal during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Wolverhampton Wanderers
Image credit: Getty Images
"It’s not about [exploiting] weakness, we try to understand the spaces they will give. The way they press, we prepared to try and understand, when we have the ball we try to understand which men will be free," Lage said.
"It can be whoever is free, one of the centre-backs free, or if they come and press three against three like they did with [Edinson] Cavani the spaces will be outside.
"That’s why today we try to find [Nelson] Semedo and [Fernando] Marcal and they come inside to play and then we play against six men, the defensive line and the two midfielders.
“When we arrive there it’s important to keep the ball, get the opponent running. Top teams, sometimes they have more problems when they don’t have the ball. If you spend more time with the ball we will find our space and create chances.
"Manchester United changed their system a bit, but when you look in the end the way we pressed, controlled the game, the chances we created we deserved the three points."
Both Bruno Fernandes and Romain Saiss hit the crossbar in the second half before Moutinho’s winner, just Wolves’ second goal in their last seven Premier League games.
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"When you are in the game you don't think about [conceding], we had that chance with [Romain] Saiss when he hit the bar, it was balanced,” Lage added.
"This is football, sometimes we have games like the first Manchester United game at home we create a lot of chances, we had one chance with Saiss in the corner and we miss and after that they score.
"I’m thinking of trying to win the game, that’s why I put Fabio Silva in the game because at the moment I felt we could win the game. We played with a big personality, we created more chances than them, we had more of the ball than them, we deserved to win."
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